The Henson Journals

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Saturday, April 25th, 1914.

I left Durham by the 8.20 express, & proceeded to Stratford via York & Birmingham, arriving about 3.30 p.m. Avonbank is a charming modern house on the Avon's bank, and adjoining the parish church. I attended a performance of 'The Comedy of Errors' in the Memorial Theatre. Bourchier was very ludicrous. On my road, I bought the "Times" which contained my letters answering Lord Hugh Cecil.

The gardens attached to the house looked beautiful in the evening light. The vicar showed me the fine church, after Evensong, which was song by a choir of boys. A curate read the 1st lesson in the teeth of a deadly stutter, which lay in wait for him in strange places! The choir–stalls are carved with many coarse & indecent scenes: indicating a Rabelaisian humour rather than the devotional absorption proper to holy men in holy places. It may serve as another illustration of the grossness of Medieval life. Shakespeare's bust is obscured & protected by some patent unbreakable glass, against the risk of attack from the Suffragettes. The non–militants on their recent march were allowed under humiliating oversight to deposit a wreath on the poet's grave.

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Issues and controversies: female suffrage